before the Seahawks season comes to a swift end at the hands of the Steelers!

We have home field advantage...Sorta...

DETROIT  From black-and-gold Ben Roethlisberger jerseys at Detroit Pistons games, to fawning newspaper columns, to proclamations from the local Hizzoner himself, Detroit may not have its team in the Super Bowl but it certainly has a team  the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Super Bowl has never been held in the hometown of one of the competing teams, and considering that the Detroit Lions have won just one playoff game since 1957, there really was no risk that would change this season at Ford Field.

So maybe that, coupled with decades of Lions futility and the retention of Matt Millen (21 victories in five seasons), explains it. Or maybe it is the sense that there is a real kinship between a couple of old, union, rust-belt towns.

Or perhaps it just stems from the belief that if your city is going to bear the brunt of endless trash talk just for hosting the game, you might as well jump on a bandwagon and enjoy it to the fullest.

Whatever it is, sorry Seattle, Detroit has gotten behind a single team like perhaps no other presumably neutral host city ever. And this isn't any 60-40 split, or just some man-on-the-street push.

Consider that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is trying to get this week declared "Jerome Bettis Week" in the city. Not a day, mind you, but the entire week. Ever heard of that happening before?

Consider that the Detroit media is in universal agreement that this is a temporary Steeler town.

"We're going with Pittsburgh," wrote Mitch Albom in the Detroit Free Press.. "We like Pittsburgh. We are Pittsburgh."

"98.99 percent of Detroit is rooting for the Steelers," wrote Bob Wojnarowski of the Detroit News. "The other 1.01 percent drink $6 cups of coffee."

Ever read something like that before?

Consider that terrible towels and Steelers jerseys have already started coloring up the city, just a 4½-hour drive from the 'Burgh. And while this is certainly an unscientific survey, we haven't personally seen or met a Seattle Seahawks fan in Michigan.

About the only thing anyone knows about the Seahawks is that this Matt Hasselbeck guy's sister-in-law is on "The View."

The ironic part is that Detroit, which is bracing for an onslaught of complaint columns from snarky, self-important sportswriters playing on the area's perception, is going full boat for the Steelers because of its perception of Seattle.

The thumbnail belief is that Pittsburgh, like Detroit, is a blue-collar, rough-around-the-edges, humble, strong, pro-union town. When the Ford Motor Company announced it was cutting 30,000 jobs last week, you could imagine the people of Pittsburgh looking at their shuttered steel mills and understanding the pain.

In Seattle, meanwhile, the belief was they just nodded at the stock market reaction and ordered another soy latte.

All of that is absurd, of course. It ignores all those Boeing factory workers, plays ignorant to the sizeable working class and diversity of Seattle, which isn't just a bunch of Fraser and Niles Cranes.

But then again, it isn't like Metro Detroit is just one big, poor factory town, either. Someone has been cashing all those auto profits for 100 years. If everyone was broke, then Michigan wouldn't rank first in total number of boat ownership and third in total golf courses (after California and Florida). Those are two particularly impressive numbers considering it is too cold here to use either of them five months a year.

But you won't hear that in the Detroit rip jobs and monologues in the run-up to Super Bowl XL.

So maybe there is something fair about a city perceived to be depressed, dangerous and dirty, making a preemptive strike and looking down on the team from the pretty, perky city that it believes would look down on them.

Plus not only does Seattle not have a hockey team, but it doesn't have Bettis. The biggest, most recognizable star and storyline in the big game grew up on Detroit's West Side and, in many ways, has never left. His family still lives here and he is even hosting a bowling tournament Thursday at his old lanes.

Bettis also owns part of a local construction company (who gets city contracts) and donated to Kilpatick's campaign fund (which explains the Bettis week). But still, political favors aside, you didn't see the mayor of Jacksonville taking sides last year. Or Houston the year before. Or so on.

The stereotypical politician plays to all sides. But not in Detroit, where choosing one side or the other, throwing down and keeping it real is always better than pandering.

Pittsburgh is seen as a brother. Seattle is seen as a bother, trying to sell a city of greasy spoons on overpriced foam in their coffee.

Those are all the stereotypes. No one likes them. But no one is going to change them or the rooting interests of the hometown.

Forget the oddsmakers and the Terry Bradshaws and the Sean Salisburies who think the Steelers are going to win the Super Bowl, and embrace Dr. John F. Murray, who believes otherwise.

Called a Football Shrink and a Football Freud, the West Palm Beach, Fla., sport psychologist developed a system in 2002 that has successfully projected the winner or the team that covered the point spread in the past three Super Bowls.

If a trend is your friend, then Doctor John is your best buddy because his Mental Performance Index system says the Seahawks will win the Super Bowl.

Like a lot of things, the MPI is far too complicated for the Go 2 Guy to fully understand, but it's based on Murray's assessment of each play, quantifying the degree to which a team performs to perfection.

For instance, a 3-yard rushing play might get an average score in one situation or an above-average score in another, if it came on a third-and-3.

Defensively, if a team gives up a 12-yard reception, it might get a below-average score, or average to above average if there was a decent rush and good coverage.

Murray emphasizes the importance of each play, including those on special teams, then adds it up, yielding conclusions and predictions.

On a scale of .000 to 1.000 (perfection), the Seahawks, in their playoff games, scored a .566 to the Steelers' .530, otherwise known as a formulaic butt-kicking in the making.

"Scoring at .600 is excellent," Murray said. "But to a sport psychologist, no team ever reaches perfection. Seattle's .566 is almost as good as it gets."
Offensively the Seahawks hold a slight .551 to .535 edge over Pittsburgh, but a whopping .598 to .505 advantage on defense.

The Steelers rated better than the Seahawks in just two areas -- offensive-pressure situations (.633 to .616) and special-teams play (.584 to .531).

But after crunching all of the numbers, though the Seahawks are four-point underdogs, Murray said they will win by five to 10 points.

"I'm not a prognosticator, that's just a fun estimate from what I'm seeing," he said. "Pittsburgh is going to have to play almost flawless football to win this game."

Murray's not some woo-woo mystic, having earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Loyola of New Orleans and two masters degrees and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida Department of Clinical and Health Psychology. His doctoral dissertation examined psychological factors on the 1996 national-champion Florida Gators.

Nonetheless, I remained skeptical until Murray kiboshed all doubts by disclosing a sure sign of credibility -- he spent a year in Pullman on a sport psychology internship and worked with the 1997 Pac-10 champion and Rose Bowling Cougs.

Along with then-WSU sport psychologist Jim Bauman, Murray had 20 to 30 players at a time come to two adjoining rooms at the University Inn in Moscow the night before home games. With the lights turned down, they would lie side by side like sardines, listen to classical music and visualize great things happening the next day.

"The world is trying to catch up to Wazzu," Murray said, half-joking though I nodded in agreement. "That's the birthplace of this for me.

"I wanted to contribute something to help advance the understanding of how a team performed. What I'm doing is not B.S. It's totally serious."

Murray never looks at the line on a game until he studies his data.

"The past predicts the future better than anything else. It might be close, but Seattle is the better performing team. If they continue to perform the way they have, they're going to win the game."

The more clips I watch of Alexander the more worried I get though. I think it'll be a closer game than that, but if one of them pulls away a late touchdown for a 10 point win I wouldn't be too suprised.

before the Seahawks season comes to a swift end at the hands of the Steelers!

We have home field advantage...Sorta...

DETROIT  From black-and-gold Ben Roethlisberger jerseys at Detroit Pistons games, to fawning newspaper columns, to proclamations from the local Hizzoner himself, Detroit may not have its team in the Super Bowl but it certainly has a team  the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Super Bowl has never been held in the hometown of one of the competing teams, and considering that the Detroit Lions have won just one playoff game since 1957, there really was no risk that would change this season at Ford Field.

So maybe that, coupled with decades of Lions futility and the retention of Matt Millen (21 victories in five seasons), explains it. Or maybe it is the sense that there is a real kinship between a couple of old, union, rust-belt towns.

Or perhaps it just stems from the belief that if your city is going to bear the brunt of endless trash talk just for hosting the game, you might as well jump on a bandwagon and enjoy it to the fullest.

Whatever it is, sorry Seattle, Detroit has gotten behind a single team like perhaps no other presumably neutral host city ever. And this isn't any 60-40 split, or just some man-on-the-street push.

Consider that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is trying to get this week declared "Jerome Bettis Week" in the city. Not a day, mind you, but the entire week. Ever heard of that happening before?

Consider that the Detroit media is in universal agreement that this is a temporary Steeler town.

"We're going with Pittsburgh," wrote Mitch Albom in the Detroit Free Press.. "We like Pittsburgh. We are Pittsburgh."

"98.99 percent of Detroit is rooting for the Steelers," wrote Bob Wojnarowski of the Detroit News. "The other 1.01 percent drink $6 cups of coffee."

Ever read something like that before?

Consider that terrible towels and Steelers jerseys have already started coloring up the city, just a 4½-hour drive from the 'Burgh. And while this is certainly an unscientific survey, we haven't personally seen or met a Seattle Seahawks fan in Michigan.

About the only thing anyone knows about the Seahawks is that this Matt Hasselbeck guy's sister-in-law is on "The View."

The ironic part is that Detroit, which is bracing for an onslaught of complaint columns from snarky, self-important sportswriters playing on the area's perception, is going full boat for the Steelers because of its perception of Seattle.

The thumbnail belief is that Pittsburgh, like Detroit, is a blue-collar, rough-around-the-edges, humble, strong, pro-union town. When the Ford Motor Company announced it was cutting 30,000 jobs last week, you could imagine the people of Pittsburgh looking at their shuttered steel mills and understanding the pain.

In Seattle, meanwhile, the belief was they just nodded at the stock market reaction and ordered another soy latte.

All of that is absurd, of course. It ignores all those Boeing factory workers, plays ignorant to the sizeable working class and diversity of Seattle, which isn't just a bunch of Fraser and Niles Cranes.

But then again, it isn't like Metro Detroit is just one big, poor factory town, either. Someone has been cashing all those auto profits for 100 years. If everyone was broke, then Michigan wouldn't rank first in total number of boat ownership and third in total golf courses (after California and Florida). Those are two particularly impressive numbers considering it is too cold here to use either of them five months a year.

But you won't hear that in the Detroit rip jobs and monologues in the run-up to Super Bowl XL.

So maybe there is something fair about a city perceived to be depressed, dangerous and dirty, making a preemptive strike and looking down on the team from the pretty, perky city that it believes would look down on them.

Plus not only does Seattle not have a hockey team, but it doesn't have Bettis. The biggest, most recognizable star and storyline in the big game grew up on Detroit's West Side and, in many ways, has never left. His family still lives here and he is even hosting a bowling tournament Thursday at his old lanes.

Bettis also owns part of a local construction company (who gets city contracts) and donated to Kilpatick's campaign fund (which explains the Bettis week). But still, political favors aside, you didn't see the mayor of Jacksonville taking sides last year. Or Houston the year before. Or so on.

The stereotypical politician plays to all sides. But not in Detroit, where choosing one side or the other, throwing down and keeping it real is always better than pandering.

Pittsburgh is seen as a brother. Seattle is seen as a bother, trying to sell a city of greasy spoons on overpriced foam in their coffee.

Those are all the stereotypes. No one likes them. But no one is going to change them or the rooting interests of the hometown.

Don't sleep on the Seahawks. If i was a betting man, I'd place my money on the Seahawks at 4 pt dogs. They have a solid running game, a good defense and a QB that doesnt make mistakes. Seems like a mirror image of Pittsburgh. I'd say its a push game at best which means i'd take Seattle for the points.

Don't sleep on the Seahawks. If i was a betting man, I'd place my money on the Seahawks at 4 pt dogs. They have a solid running game, a good defense and a QB that doesnt make mistakes. Seems like a mirror image of Pittsburgh. I'd say its a push game at best which means i'd take Seattle for the points.

My prediction for the game is

Seattle 24 Pittsburgh 23

Gonna be a good one.

Click to expand...

IMO, if you go by strength of regular season schedule, then playoff opponents, the Steelers have the edge.

The Steeler's defense can shut down Seattle's offense. Seattle's defense can't shut down the Steeler's.

Finally, PROVIDED Pittsburgh plays the way they have the past two weeks, it isn't going to matter WHAT Seattle does.

Useful Searches

About USMessageBoard.com

USMessageBoard.com was founded in 2003 with the intent of allowing all voices to be heard. With a wildly diverse community from all sides of the political spectrum, USMessageBoard.com continues to build on that tradition. We welcome everyone despite political and/or religious beliefs, and we continue to encourage the right to free speech.

Come on in and join the discussion. Thank you for stopping by USMessageBoard.com!